Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [0]
This book is dedicated to my nieces. Girls, none of you were born when Skulduggery Pleasant first appeared. But since you’ve arrived, no one in our family wants to talk about the writer any more. Now all they want to talk about are the damn babies. All of a sudden, no one wants to cuddle me, and for that I blame you.
But, I suppose you have your good points. It’s because of you that Valkyrie has a little sister, after all. You’re all mildly cute, reasonably adorable, and you make me laugh when you fall over.
So this book is dedicated to you, Rebecca and Emily, Sophie and Clara and
(insert names of any more nieces or nephews that might sprout up between now and when they’re old enough to read this).
I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am your favourite uncle. And you probably prefer me to your parents, too.
(I’ve met your parents. I don’t blame you. They’re rubbish.)
Epigraph
“Good and evil are so close as to be chained together in the soul.”
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Kenny
Chapter 2 - Me and the Girl
Chapter 3 - The Christening
Chapter 4 - Craven
Chapter 5 - The Jitter Girls
Chapter 6 - China’s Secret
Chapter 7 - The Death Bringer
Chapter 8 - Friends in High Places
Chapter 9 - Friends in Low Places
Chapter 10 - The Warlock
Chapter 11 - Alone at Last
Chapter 12 - Bump in the Night
Chapter 13 - Shadowknives
Chapter 14 - The Call
Chapter 15 - The Doctor is In
Chapter 16 - Full Recovery
Chapter 17 - The Zombie King - And Co
Chapter 18 - The Arrest Warrant
Chapter 19 - Gods and Monsters
Chapter 20 - Riding Out
Chapter 21 - The Love of a Vampire
Chapter 22 - The Church of the Faceless
Chapter 23 - The Homecoming
Chapter 24 - The Temple Siege
Chapter 25 - The Vivid Dead
Chapter 26 - Terminal Two
Chapter 27 - Into the Temple
Chapter 28 - A Vile History
Chapter 29 - Who Knows What Darkness
Chapter 30 - Tenebrae
Chapter 31 - Fuel
Chapter 32 - A Bad Night in Haggard
Chapter 33 - Willow Hill
Chapter 34 - Valkyrie and Fletcher
Chapter 35 - Teaching the Twins
Chapter 36 - Confiding in Uncle Gordon
Chapter 37 - The Wisdom of Leonard Cohen
Chapter 38 - Back at the Window Again
Chapter 39 - Killing Craven
Chapter 40 - The End of the Death Bringer
Chapter 41 - Home Sweet Home
Chapter 42 - A New Mission
Chapter 43 - A & E
Chapter 44 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 45 - The Nicest Town in Ireland
Chapter 46 - The Requiem Ball
Chapter 47 - This Evening’s Entertainment
Chapter 48 - Going Underground
Chapter 49 - The Pre-Emptive Strike
Chapter 50 - China’s Ally
Chapter 51 - Flirting Disastrously
Chapter 52 - All Fall Down
Chapter 53 - The Death Bringer Rises
Chapter 54 - Monster, Murderer
Chapter 55 - Tunnel Vision
Chapter 56 - Panic
Chapter 57 - Beheaded
Chapter 58 - The Main Event
Chapter 59 - Hero and Villain
Chapter 60 - Tattletale
Chapter 61 - My Twilight
Chapter 62 - They Walk Among Us
Also by Landy Derek
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
he closing do or made the candlelight dance, waltzing and flickering over the girl strapped to the table. She turned her head to him. Her face, like every other part of her, was decorated with small, pale scars, symbols painstakingly carved into her flesh over the course of the last few months. Her name was Melancholia St Clair. She was his secret. His experiment. His last, desperate grasp for power.
“It hurts,” she said.
Vandameer Craven, Cleric First Class of the Necromancer Order, esteemed Scholar of Arcane Languages and feared opponent on the debating battlefield, nodded and patted her hand. She had entered into this arrangement with the kind of zeal that only the truly greedy can muster, but recently her bouts of annoying self-pity were becoming more and more frequent. “I know, my dear, I know it does. But pain is nothing. Once our work is done, there will be no pain. You have suffered for all of us. You have suffered for all life in this world, in this universe.”
“Please,” she whimpered, “make